


all the feeling and the rain

by strangetowns



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: M/M, Pining, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3953920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you walk back into the room, you catch sight of Pedro and everything kind of just stops, for a minute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the feeling and the rain

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively: Balthazar pines. Like I haven’t written enough of that, right?
> 
> Inspired by The Lighthouse and the Whaler’s song “[Venice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5zZ1l4scgM)”.

When Pedro invites friends over to study, usually what happens is less studying and more silly shenanigans. Especially if Ben is involved.

You can tell he’s serious about studying today, though. For one, when you enter the room, there’s no talking. Which, when Ben is there too, is a silence that truly speaks louder than words. For another, Pedro hardly looks up from his notes when you walk in, just waves his hand in your general direction and carries on. You get a better greeting from Ben. Ben, whose most common way of saying hi to you is to launch directly into some terrible joke.

You suppose you can’t blame him. Year eleven final exams are coming up, and they promise to be a real pain. So you sit down, open your books, and get down to business. Your grades could certainly benefit from a few hours’ solid studying.

It’s almost comforting, the silence, until Ben stretches his arms back and says, “Well, all this has been great and not mind-numbing, but I should probably be getting home soon.”

You blink, about to chastise him for his laziness, before you check your watch and realize, oh, it’s been _three hours_ since you first got there.

Anyway, who are you to chastise anyone for laziness? You’ve been mindlessly doodling cheesy lyrics on the margins of your notes for at least twenty minutes now. You glance at the latest one you scrawled, and close your notebook in mild disgust. Cheesy, indeed.

You look back up as Pedro straightens and lets out a yawn.

“God, is it only seven?” he says. “I could really use a nap.”

“Only seven, he says,” Ben says, rolling his eyes. “Like we haven’t been working our butts off for literally hours. I can’t believe you roped me into this.”

“If I recall,” you say, “there was no roping. Who was it that was freaking out about failing math again?”

“Yes, thank you,” Pedro says. “You picked your poison, man.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben answers, waving his hand in dismissal. “Well, I suppose unless a bus runs me over between now and tomorrow – which at this point, believe me, would be an incredible stroke of fortune – I’ll see you gentlemen later, and we’ll pick up where we left off.” He scoops up his books and leaves the room.

“I guess I should be going, too,” you say.

“Are you sure? We could play video games, or…” He breaks off into another yawn. “… watch a movie, or something. Study break of sorts.”

You allow yourself to entertain the idea briefly. Inhabiting the same room with Pedro, and only Pedro, for an extended period of time, breathing in the same air.

“Better not,” you say. “Told my parents I’d be home for dinner soon.”

“Next time, then,” Pedro says with an encouraging smile. Implying that there will be a next time. “Wait, are you walking home? Do you have an umbrella?”

“Er…” You look out the window. Well, what do you know. At some point today, it _did_ start raining. “Would it be too much to ask to borrow one?”

“Nah, go ahead.” Pedro gets up from his seat and falls on his bed with a loud sigh. “You know where to find them. And in the meantime, I’ll just. Be here. Trying not to fall asleep.”

You can’t help but laugh at that. What a task.

As soon as you leave for the coat rack by the front door, though, regret begins to seep into your thoughts. What are you doing with yourself? Why are you doing it? Aren’t crushes bad enough on their own? You have to use it as an excuse to _torture_ yourself? Are you some kind of masochist?

“Dunno, dunno, yes, apparently, probably,” you mutter to yourself, yanking the umbrella viciously from its hook and trying not to be irritated by your own thought process. It’s a challenging endeavor.

It’s whatever. Not a big deal. It never is. All you need to do is get your stuff and leave. Simple enough.

But when you walk back into the room, you catch sight of Pedro and everything kind of just stops, for a minute.

He’s already fallen asleep, the loser. He’s turned toward the window, his face half buried in his pillow. Pale light slants through the window, and the shadows cast on his cheekbones make his expression look almost peaceful. It shouldn’t be a special sight. You’ve seen him asleep plenty of times before. But there’s something about the surprise of it, the unexpectedness of seeing him like this when he was awake just minutes ago, that makes you feel like an intruder. Like maybe this isn’t something you should be seeing. And maybe it would be different if you were anyone else. Maybe you wouldn’t feel this way if you weren’t you.

Unfortunately for your stupid feelings, you’re stuck like this. You’re stuck being a person who aggressively lives and breathes music, a person whose favorite food is pizza but only marginally so, a person who gets decent marks in English and slightly less than decent marks in math, a person who’s been hopelessly mad for a boy named Pedro Donaldson since probably before you even realized it.

There was a fantasy you used to have, something of a daydream. You’ve grown out of it, mostly because you’re old enough now to feel at peace with the fact that it will never happen, but seeing him like this, arms curled under his side and lips partly open, reminds you of it, the image of an anonymous room somewhere with a bed not too different from this one. In this vague dream of yours, you haven’t really imagined the details of the room itself. Maybe it’s in a motel somewhere, or a house you haven’t moved into yet. But you can clearly picture how the light looks outside, how a storm might have raged hours before only to clear right before the sun set. How beautiful the colors of the sky would be, in that fragile blur between day and night, and how the room would slowly give itself to the shadows as the sun bled away.

And in the dream he’s lying on the bed, almost exactly as he is right now in front of you. But it’s not just that. You’re lying with him, in his arms or maybe on top of him with your head on his chest, your ear to his heartbeat; it doesn’t matter, really, how you’re doing it. There’s no speaking, no kissing, no sex, nothing like that, in this image you’ve thought about probably hundreds of times; only the feeling that he exists, and that you exist with him.

What would it be like, you always wondered, to be next to him like that? To learn all the ways another person could keep you warm, and safe?

This is kind of ridiculous, honestly. You feel ridiculous, standing here in the doorway of your friend’s room as if you’re paralyzed. Your pulse feels frozen, caught somewhere in your veins. You are the most ridiculous person alive.

He shifts in his sleep, letting out a soft exhale. Time seems to burst forth in full force once more; the world spins again beneath your feet. You swallow hard.

The rain falls outside, so slowly you can almost count the drops that fall on the sill if you wanted to. People have told you about how when they were young they’d imagine the drops that fell onto windows racing each other to the bottom. But you – you always thought they danced.

You wonder what silent music the raindrops must dance to.

And, as you gather your belongings and shut the door behind you as gently as you can, you think it’s a song you’d like to hear, one day.

-

_Why don’t we fall in love?_


End file.
